


if i drink enough (i swear that i will wake up next to you)

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Multi, Past Lance Hunter/Alphonso Mackenzie/Bobbi Morse/Elena Rodriguez, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-18 21:12:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16524746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: For Bobbi, sometimes coping looks like getting drunk in the middle of the night, just to trick herself into thinking she's going to wake up next to someone who's already gone.





	if i drink enough (i swear that i will wake up next to you)

“You coming to bed?” Bobbi appears in the doorway like a ghost, bare feet soft against the concrete floor of the Lighthouse. Elena’s perched on the edge of a chair at the makeshift kitchen table, staring into space. Bobbi doesn’t need to ask to know she’s been there for a long time, maybe hours.

“I need a drink first,” Elena murmurs. She uncurls her shoulders, standing slowly and shakily. Bobbi doesn’t try to help her; Elena’s got her stubborn pride to nurse. Bobbi can’t even complain, because she knows she’s the same way, but  _ God _ does it hurt to watch someone she loves suffer. 

Instead, Bobbi meets Elena at the refrigerator. She doesn’t reach out first, but accepts when Elena gently wraps her robotic arms around Bobbi’s waist. The metal is cold against the sliver of skin between Bobbi’s sleep shirt and her pajama pants, sending shivers up Bobbi’s spine. She huddles closer to Elena, trying to steal what little heat she can from her girlfriend. The refrigerator open in front of them isn’t helping matters.

Bobbi sees why Elena’s halted, though. Someone must have cleaned out all of the expired leftovers, because there’s just a few staples left - including a half-drunk six-pack of beer, and one that hasn’t yet been touched.

It’s Hunter’s beer. Bobbi feels tears sting the back of her eyes, her throat clogging up as she tries valiantly to think of anything but Hunter and Mack. Elena’s arm tightens painfully around Bobbi’s waist. Bobbi clears her throat, and the pressure releases slightly.

“Just take it,” Bobbi whispers. “Let’s just -”

“Drink it all,” Elena agrees gruffly. She grabs all the beer from the fridge, letting go of Bobbi so she can put it all down on the table. She’s being more aggressive than she needs to be, and Bobbi’s willing to bet that Elena’s control on her emotions is slipping enough that she’s forgetting to modulate how much strength she has in her arms.

Elena returns to her previous seat, and Bobbi forgoes a seat of her own in favor of Elena’s lap. She feels ridiculous, since she’s so much larger than her girlfriend, but they both need the physical contact. 

Bobbi reaches over, opening one of the beer cans and handing it to Elena before cracking open a second for herself. It’s not that great of beer - Bobbi doesn’t understand why Hunter liked it so much - but it’s alcohol, and really, that’s what she needs right now. She swallows down half the can in one go, desperately searching for the buzz in her fingertips that lets her know she’s on the way to oblivion. It isn’t there.

“This is awful,” Elena says. Bobbi doesn’t know whether she’s talking about the situation or the beer, because they’re both awful.

“Yeah.” Bobbi drinks the rest of the can, and hands it to Elena. Her girlfriend crumples it into a tiny ball of aluminum, and for a half-second Bobbi can almost remember happier times, when Hunter would challenge Elena to see how much her arms could compress a can. Mack always shook his head at that, but Elena obliged Hunter no matter how many times he asked her.

Elena’s finished her drink, too, and she grabs for another can before Bobbi has the opportunity to do it for her. There’s a loud crack as Elena tries to open the beer, and suddenly there’s liquid sloshing everywhere - on Bobbi’s lap and Elena’s shirt and the wooden chair and the concrete floor.

“Shit,” Elena intones. The word sounds hollow, echoing through the kitchen as they both stand up to let the liquid sluice off of them. It’s too late for Bobbi, though - her pajama pants are already soaked through. She does the only logical thing, stripping down to her underwear and throwing the wet fabric onto the table.

“Someone could see you,” Elena says, and there’s another stolen moment where Bobbi thinks of when things were better. Memories of Elena whispering those words into her ear when they were doing filthy things to each other in the locker rooms, a caution but not a rebuke, warm her even as the chilly air wraps around her.

“No one else is up,” Bobbi answers. The rest of the team had gone to bed long ago, and even if they hadn’t, they generally avoided Bobbi and Elena anymore. They walk on eggshells, and that drives Bobbi absolutely mental.

It’s been a month. Or has it been two? Time’s been moving strangely since the day Hunter and Mack hadn’t come home. Either way, shit’s not going to go back to normal unless someone else makes the effort to make it normal again. Bobbi can’t be that person, and she know Elena can’t be, either. They’re accustomed to being strong, but this time… this time, they can’t be. It hurts too much.

Elena picks up the exploded can, and knocks back what little liquid is left in it. Bobbi hands her another wordlessly. Neither of them move to sit back down, even though there are several other chairs that haven’t recently received a beer bath. 

Bobbi gets herself another drink, too. It goes down more slowly than the first one - Bobbi keeps choking on memories. The silence that’s between her and Elena feels heavy, and Bobbi wishes she knew how to bear that weight. She wants to help, but she doesn’t know how. She and Elena had always felt like the weakest link in their foursome. Hunter and Elena were similarly reckless, and that made them fast friends. Sometimes Bobbi wondered if she and Elena even loved each other, or if they just pretended that they did because that was what was supposed to happen, a perfect completion to their square.

Nothing about what’s left of this is perfect. It’s all wrecked and mangled, just like -

She’s not going to think about that.

She gets another drink. Bobbi thinks maybe she should be worried that she’s drinking faster than Elena. Elena’s got the faster metabolism of the two of them despite Bobbi being larger. It’s the Inhuman gene, Daisy had said. 

Doesn’t matter, though, because Bobbi’s plowed right through tipsy and is on her way to drunk. It’s what happens when you drink three beers in fifteen minutes. 

“Mi amor.” Elena’s voice breaks the silence. “Baila conmigo.” 

It hits Bobbi like a freight train - the image of Elena standing on Mack’s feet, dancing through the base while they all laughed about how abysmal the pair of them were at dancing. They had been tipsy then, too.

Bobbi doesn’t know how to say no, so she wraps her arms around Elena’s waist. They sway to music they can’t hear, and before she knows it, Bobbi’s attached her mouth to Elena’s. They’re not sloppy kissers, even when tipsy, but there’s desperation to it. Bobbi’s not sure what she’s trying to do - to trigger another memory of when Lance and Mack were alive, or to forget that there’s anything to remember at all. 

Elena’s mouth tastes like beer and day-old lipstick that hasn’t been rubbed off, because Elena hasn’t eaten, or talked, or otherwise do anything to wear it down. It tastes foreign, like something Bobbi should remember but doesn’t. 

Bobbi needs to drink more. 

(Mack’s voice in her head says that she needs to go to sleep, but Mack doesn’t get to boss her around. If he was here she wouldn’t need to drink as much in the first place.)

It’s after the fourth beer that Bobbi thinks she might qualify as drunk. She drinks it while still dancing with Elena, stealing kisses between sips. The desperation has melted away to reveal something much more raw. Bobbi doesn’t have a word for it, because she’s not sure there  _ is _ a word for what you feel when you lose your best friends, your lovers. She doesn’t think there’s a word for how two damaged souls reach out to each other for no other reason than because they’re both torn apart in the same way. She doesn’t think there’s a word for being so numb but also feeling so much it hurts.

There’s not a word to explain, but there’s a touch of the tongue, a clash of the teeth, a brush of the lips. There’s fingers and palms, the curve of bodies that deserve to be together. 

“Come to bed,” Bobbi says between kisses. “Come to bed,” she repeats before Elena can answer. She’s begging, begging for something to be right. 

Elena nods.

They stumble through the hallways together, still half-dancing but mostly trying to hide that the two of them have put down eight beers in the last half hour. Bobbi smears messy kisses up Elena’s neck and tangles her fingers in Elena’s hair. The lines between reality and fantasy are already blurry, and the more she breathes in the spicy sweetness of Elena’s shampoo and perfume, the fuzzier things get.

When they collapse into bed, the muscles under her fingers aren’t Elena’s anymore. They’re Hunter’s, as familiar to her as the back of her hand. They’re Mack’s, supple and smooth. 

It’s not fair to do this to Elena. It’s not. But Bobbi doesn’t care about fair.

She cares that, for just a moment more, she gets to fall asleep next to the men she loves. 

Tomorrow, she will wake up next to Hunter. She will wake up next to Mack.

The dream will fade in a moment, but a moment is all she needs.

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely the fault of [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43n1wghXRGM) and [this person](https://heeeymackelena.tumblr.com/).


End file.
